Friday, May 10, 2019

In spring, we need to start emptying out the freezer of last season's
stored bounty but also crave freshly foraged green goodies.

Here we combined some of autumn's maitake mushrooms (Grifola frondosa)
that we had frozen pre-cooked and ground with brown rice, chopped ramps
greens, seasonings, and an egg as a binder to make a baked patty. Then I
baked some biscuits made with added pureed ramps greens and chopped
ramps greens added to the dough. We served them with pickled beets
made from last year's CSA share. It seems likely that many dinners for
the next month or two will include wild foods pulled from our freezer or
pantry to make some space!

Thursday, May 9, 2019

The "official" morel season seems to be underway in Connecticut and
southern New England, even though we still don't find too many. Why? Is
the soil wrong? Are the trees wrong? What is up with the weather? Who
knows, not me!

But, when we head out for other assorted forages
(for nettles, ramps greens, asparagus, immature knotweed, or pokeweed
shoots), we still ramble around and examine the grounds and forests for
morels, likely Morchella americana, the yellow morel.

With limited
experience with morels, we often dehydrate them to concentrate their
flavor upon re-hydration, or cook them fresh very simply. A light
batter and fry is the popular default, cooking in a wine and cream sauce
is standard, and stuffing large morels that have been halved seems like
a good idea.

Morchella americana in various stages of development. Not really any such thing as "greys" or "blondes"

Wednesday, May 8, 2019

Some warmer weather is finally signalling the Ganoderma tsugae to
fruit. We find them on eastern hemlock trees (Tsuga canadensis), dead or
nearly dead trunks. Our eastern hemlocks are under a lot of pressure
from several sources that are killing them in large numbers: from the
woolly hemlock adelgid--an invasive insect; to various fungal blights
and infections--tip blight, twig blight, needle rusts. The amount of
dead hemlock trees is steadily increasing, creating more substrate for the "hemlock reishi", or "varnish shelf" fungus.

Fresh fruiting body, soft and tender at this stage

Ganoderma tsugae is a white rot or butt rot of the heartwood for the
hemlock tree. It can act like a parasite on live trees and a saprobe on
dead hemlock wood. The fruiting body is a firm polypore that shelves out
horizontally from the substrate, sometimes in large colonies. The top
of the fruiting body comes in a range of colors that changes as it
ages--starting out with white on the tender new growth and edges, then
darkening through yellow, orange, reddish-orange, and finally a darker
reddish-brown after sporulation or with age and weathering. The top of
the cap also appears very shiny, almost as if it were lacquered. The
fan-shaped cap can grow up to 10" wide, but more often the caps are
about 4-7" wide, and there is often a stem present where the cap
attaches to the wood that is up to 1" thick. The fresh pore surface is
white; it gets a dirty reddish-tan with age and often supports a colony
of green mold or algae. There are many cool insects and beetles that
live on old Ganoderma conks, so there is really no need to remove old
fruiting bodies from the wood.

Many people in the eastern part
of North America where Ganoderma tsugae is abundant love to claim that
Ganoderma tsugae is the true "reishi" fungus of Chinese medicinal lore,
seemingly a cure for every cancer, malady, and even a fountain of youth
treatment. Those same people are more than happy to try and sell some
dried "reishi" to you to make a bitter decoction or some tinctured
"reishi", making some pretty big promises as the efficacy of the fungus.
We don't really get into medicinal fungi, but the actual "reishi"
fungus is a different species--Ganoderma lucidum, and any actual
scientific studies into the possible benefits of "reishi" are in regards
to Ganoderma lucidum.

Very young fruiting body, sliced and pan-ready

In the spring, when the fresh growth is
still white with no hint of any lacquered color showing or any signs of
pores, we collect the marshmallow-y fruiting body to eat as a fresh
mushroom. The mushroom should be incredibly tender--it gets tough very
quickly with any hint of color or once it gets too big. The white blobs
get sliced thinly, cooked with a touch of oil over medium heat until
they brown, then hit with a sprinkle of salt for a taste of a mushroom
that contains a lot of meaty flavor in a small slice.